


the weight of two suns

by ObscureReference



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Magic, Major Character Injury, Memory Loss, Near Death Experiences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 13:27:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14081955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObscureReference/pseuds/ObscureReference
Summary: Hurt,Owain thought again, thinking of all three of them. Severa wasn’t moving. He didn’t think he could move either.There was a shuffle somewhere, the sound of a footstep on uneven terrain, but Owain couldn’t see that far. He couldn’t see at all actually, he realized. His eyes had fallen shut. His wet breaths were becoming more distant too, just like the pain. Everything, now, felt far away. Fuzzy. Like falling asleep.“Are you sure?”somebody asked.“It will not be easy—”“I don’t care!”Inigo said, voice ragged.“Please, if you have the power, they don’t have much time! I’m begging you.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a scene from an incomplete, fragmented AU that has been stuck in my head for forever. I was describing it to a friend the other day and got inspired to write this. 
> 
> Also, this is the fic that made me realize I write the amnesia trope an awful lot, lol. Maybe I'll try to diverge a bit more in future fic too.

_“Yes!”_ Inigo said, his voice desperate and far away. _“Yes, I’ll do it! I’ll do anything. Just save them.”_

Owain _hurt_ all over and inside himself, a feeling of weight and darkness gnawing indescribably at his bones. The wet rasp of every breath he struggled to take sounded louder in his ears than Inigo’s voice.

His head felt as though it’d been stuffed with cotton, but he struggled to open his eyes anyway. He couldn’t crack them open much farther than a sliver, and he almost didn’t recognize Inigo’s dark, blurry silhouette when he did. If he’d had the energy, he would have been startled to find that Inigo was not as far away as he’d initially thought. But Owain barely had the energy to open his eyes and none to spare for connecting observations with thoughts, and so he wasn’t startled at all.

Inigo had one arm wrapped around his middle and the other cradling Severa’s head in his lap. His hair was wild and dirty, but it was hard for Owain’s brain to register much else besides _Inigo_ and _Severa_ and _it hurts_. They looked hurt too. Inigo’s head kept dipping in Owain’s direction like he was checking up on him, though he didn’t seem to notice Owain looking back. Or maybe he did. Everything was very blurry.

For a split-second Inigo uncurled the arm he had wrapped around himself like he wanted to reach out for Owain, but he aborted that movement with a pained gasp just as soon as he began, hunching over Severa once more.

_Hurt_ , Owain thought again, thinking of all three of them. Severa wasn’t moving. He didn’t think he could move either.

There was a shuffle somewhere, the sound of a footstep on uneven terrain, but Owain couldn’t see that far. He couldn’t see at all actually, he realized. His eyes had fallen shut. His wet breaths were becoming more distant too, just like the pain. Everything, now, felt far away. Fuzzy. Like falling asleep.

_“Are you sure?”_ somebody asked. _“It will not be easy—”_

_“I don’t care!”_ Inigo said, voice ragged. _“Please, if you have the power, they don’t have much time! I’m begging you.”_

There were many more footsteps.

_Invisible_ , Owain thought, a little unsure of where the thought had come from. The memory of the battle was slipping away from him. He thought, _They were invisible._

He tried to open his eyes again and found that he couldn’t. The arrhythmic _thump-thump-thump_ of his heart in his ears had grown more and more quiet.

_“Please_.” Was that Inigo? He couldn’t tell anymore.

The strange voice said, _“I am Anankos, and from this point forwards, you are Inigo no longer. Remember that.”_

It sounded regretful.

Owain slipped.

 

 

 

He woke up.

He wondered, briefly, why he’d been sleeping on the ground and why the sky was so dark when he realized there were voices.

“You aren’t hurt, are you?”

“Hurt? Why would I be hurt? Are _you_ hurt?”

“No, I was just…”

“Hey,” somebody said—a woman, he realized, when pushed himself up on his hands and turned his head. Her hair was long and red. She crossed her arms, a sour look on her face. “Do you know who you are? Or _where_ we are?”

He echoed, “Who…”

Then he blinked. He searched his mind for a name—any name, even the woman’s—and found only emptiness.

“I don’t think he remembers,” the other voice said hesitantly. A man.

The woman’s mouth twisted into a frown. Next to her stood a man with gray hair who looked as unsure of himself as he ( _what was his name?)_ felt.

“I’m Selena,” the red-haired woman said, frowning. “I guess.”

The warnings of an oncoming headache had begun to press at his temples from struggling to wrack his head for a memory, a name, a _fragment_ of anything at all, and the smart part of him said that he should take it slow. He couldn’t stop the wild spiral of his thoughts.

“You guess?” he asked. It occurred to him that he could stand up, and so he did. He wobbled for a moment, but only briefly. The tiny stones embedded in the flat earth under his feet made a crunching sound as he stood.

When he looked around, he realized it wasn’t just the sky that was dark. It was as though the very air itself was imbued with darkness. Somewhere off in the distance, he could see a bridge and the gaping maw of what might have been a canyon. They were nowhere close to the edge of either, but he took an instinctive step back anyways. The woman and other man watched him.

He thought it looked like an ominous place to wake up in with no memory. Weirdly, he also thought it made a good setting for something really cool to happen too. He would have appreciated it more if that cool thing was his memories suddenly returning to him.

“Yeah, I guess,” Maybe Selena said. “Check your pocket.”

There was no reason not to, so he did.

He pulled out a piece of paper. On it, in unfamiliar plain letters, was the name “Odin.”

Of course it was unfamiliar. For all he knew, it was his own handwriting.

_Odin_ , he read again, tracing the large letters. He wondered if it was his name.

Selena waved her own slip of paper at him, pulling him back from his thoughts. “Mine says Selena. That guy’s says Laslow.” Presumably Laslow waved. “What’s yours say?”

“Odin,” he said. It didn’t sound like his name, but it was possible he wouldn’t recognize his own name if he’d heard it either. None of his surroundings looked familiar, but he had to have gotten here somehow. “My name’s Odin?”

“Probably,” Laslow said.

His headache was full-blown now. Confusion pounded at his temple like a sledgehammer, his mind an empty abyss. “Probably?”

“Well, it’s not like _we_ know!” Selena snapped. “We woke up practically two seconds before you did! We have papers in our pockets and nothing else to go on.” A nod from Laslow confirmed this was true. “Unless you’re suddenly about to reveal that you know something, that is.”

Her voice was loud enough to make Odin—was that _really_ his name?—instinctively step back again. He didn’t like the way her voice sliced through the silence, nor the thick, unyielding tension of unshed rain in the air. Wherever they were, it didn’t feel like a good place to be at all.

She looked at him expectantly. He shook his head in answer, unsure of what to say. His headache worsened.

“Hey, now,” Laslow said placatingly, placing a hand on Selena’s shoulder. “We’re all in this boat together, aren’t we? Let’s not jump at each other’s throats.”

Selena didn’t seem to appreciate Laslow touching her, as evidenced by the way she shrugged off his hand, but she didn’t disagree either. She crossed her arms over her chest even tighter and looked away with a guilty sounding, “Sorry. This just…”

She was probably going to finish with the word “sucks.” At least, that’s how Odin felt. Selena trailed off.

“It does,” Laslow agreed.

Selena shook her head like she was shaking off the guilt and tried again.

“Okay,” Selena said, still looking miserable but less likely to snap. “Now that we’re all awake, does anybody know where the hell we are? Or why?”

Laslow chuckled nervously, scratching the back of his neck. “No idea.” He paused, pressing his lips together in thought. “But I get the feeling that… we know each other somehow?”

There was something off about his voice, Odin thought. Something weird. Like he was holding something back.

But they had just all woken up in a very dark, deserted nowhere with no memory of how they had arrived, so Odin thought they probably all sounded a little weird.

“What makes you say that?” Selena asked flatly. “The fact we all woke up in a big pile on the ground?”

“Ah, probably,” Laslow said. He looked over his shoulder, off into the distance and back. “However, first things first. We might want to start walking a direction and see if we can’t find anybody we recognize or somebody who recognizes us. Does that sound alright?”

Selena sighed loudly. “It’s probably the best idea we have so far. It’s not like we’ll find many clues around here anyway.”

She looked out across the dead landscape. Odin found himself agreeing with her.

They should have been freaking out more, he thought. All of them. It was possible they were all in shock, but that didn’t feel right either. Nothing did.

Laslow looked over with a funny look on his face. “Are you alright? Odin, was it?”

Odin blinked.

“What?” He realized he hadn’t spoken up in a while. “Yes, fine. Sorry. Just thinking. Finding some semblance of civilization sounds like a fine idea.”

Laslow frowned. “You’ve been awfully quiet over there.”

Odin shrugged.

“Am I normally chatty?” he joked. Obviously neither of them would have known. Laslow’s frown only deepened, however, his eyes sliding away from Odin’s face, and Odin made a note not to make any more jokes like that. Apparently, some of them were more bothered about this memory loss thing than they were letting on.

Not that Odin could blame him. His headache was pounding something awful and still, he’d remembered nothing. A bit of panic clawed at his chest, and he forced it back down. Panic solved nothing. Walking might.

Stifling a wince, he fell into step with Laslow and Selena. They were walking _away_ from the bridge, thankfully. Not that there appeared to be any sign of people in the opposite direction either, but for some reason Odin didn’t like the idea of having to cross it.

“So,” he said, absently digging through his empty pockets for something else that might serve as a clue to any of their identities. Laslow had said he was being quiet, and there was no reason not to talk. Talking might even jog something in his memory, he considered. “We might as well try to piece together what we can from our clothes and whatnot. Or at least get to know each other a bit, since that might jog our memories or something, don’t you think?

Selena shrugged in a “might as well” type of gesture, looking distant and sad, and Laslow’s mouth stretched into a smile that didn’t match his eyes.

Odin got the feeling they had a long way to go. In more ways than one.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bonus chapter I didn't realize I was going to write until two seconds before I was about to publish the first part.

Laslow looked at them, two pieces of home who were now strangers, and thought, _I’m sorry._

He thought, _I would have done anything for you._ He thought, _There was nothing else to be done._

He thought, _You don’t remember me._

He thought, _I’ll still do anything for you, I’m so, so sorry—_

He thought, _I would choose this a thousand times before I would have chosen your deaths._

He thought, _I’m keeping us together, no matter what_.

No matter what, Laslow would not let them wander this strange new world alone. Not ever again.

They were his friends still, and he would carry the price of the bargain he made for them on his back forever. Gladly.

“Nohr?” he heard Severa—no, it was Selena now— say, peering over a map some kindly stranger let them borrow. Her brow furroed. “I’ve never heard of any place called Nohr.”

“It sounds mysterious,” Odin commented, dragging his fingers down the side of the page, tracing kingdoms. “Also, it looks like we’re already in Nohr, if I’m reading this map right.”

“What? Move over. Show me.”

They looked like they were getting along, mostly. Laslow breathed in as evenly as he could. Good. He was glad. They were acting a little more like themselves by the minute, and the worst of the fear that they had been permanently changed by the bargain had begun to bleed away. Not all of it. But some.

He had a job to do, Laslow reminded himself as Selena and Odin looked at the map. He remembered the deal Anankos had struck, the request Laslow had agreed to. The bargain that had cost his friends their memories in exchange for their lives because all magic had a price and Anankos had regretfully said he was in no current position to do better.

Find the missing child, he’d also said. Keep them safe.

Laslow could do that. He had traveled through time, fought wars against undead beasts, beaten impossible odds. He could keep his friends together and find a kidnapped prince or princess at the same time. There could only be so many in the world, after all. And he already knew where to start.

“Nohr,” Laslow repeated slowly, tapping his finger against his lip as though puzzling over the word. “I think that does sound familiar somehow.”

Odin raised his eyebrows. “Really?”

It had been a few hours since they had started walking. He wasn’t wincing as much as he had been before. Laslow hoped that meant his headache was gone. Too much guilt already sat heavy in Laslow’s ribcage to add Odin’s migraines on top of it.

“You remember something?” Selena asked, straightening from where she had hunched over the map.

“Not exactly,” Laslow lied, feeling worse with every falsehood that left his lips. This wouldn’t be forever, he told himself. He wouldn’t have been able to function otherwise. “But if we’re already in Nohr, that has to mean something, right? Perhaps we traveled here together for some reason? We may have a connection to this place.”

Selena made a sound like she didn’t quiet believe him. But she looked at her shoes thoughtfully anyway and sighed heavily. “I guess that makes sense. It’s more than we had to go on before, at least.”

“What if we made our way towards the capitol?” Odin suggested. “We can check out the small villages on the way to see if there are any clues as to who we are, and if not, there are likely some talented mages who can help identify where we’ve come from. Or they may even help recover our memories with a spell. We can still search the area around here first though.”

The capitol, Laslow thought. Where else would captive royalty be held? It was a good a place to start as any, and Odin suggesting it was a lot less suspicious than Laslow doing so.

“I agree,” he said quickly.

Maybe too quickly, considering the look Selena gave him. But then she blew a lock of hair out of her eyes and said, “We might as well.”

Laslow let out the breath he’d been holding.

_This could work,_ he thought. They could do this. _He_ could do this. They’d travel to the capitol and grow closer on the journey, more like friends and less like people bound by circumstances outside of their will, and then—

Well, Laslow would figure it out from there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to leave a comment below or hit me up on my [tumblr!](http://someobscurereference.tumblr.com/) I get a lot of FE14 meta and fic related asks there, so feel free to browse through my "asks" or "fe14" tag for some extra stuff from me and your fellow readers you may not see over here. Or send in a question of your own if you had one. Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to leave a comment below or hit me up on my [tumblr!](http://someobscurereference.tumblr.com/) I get a lot of FE14 meta and fic related asks there, so feel free to browse through my "asks" or "fe14" tag for some extra stuff from me and your fellow readers you may not see over here. Or send in a question of your own if you had one. Thanks for reading!


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